M Pub 2020 402PTII#01 // S 6LP   ::317132::

Comment
Scholars and higher education institutions are facing increasing threats around the world. The 2024 report Free to Think (July 2023–June 2024) documented 391 attacks in 51 countries and territories. These not only included major attacks, such as the intentional destruction of higher education infrastructure during armed conflicts, but also the suppression of dissent, arrests, the passing of new illiberal laws, restrictions on university autonomy, acts of intimidation and violent attacks against individuals. Authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, Iran, and Nicaragua have intensified repression of scholars and academics who criticize government policies. But academic freedom is also under threat in some democracies, where criticism of certain governments has led to job losses, canceled events, or lecture bans. Remarkably, in the United States, the Trump administration’s policies—including funding cuts to agencies like NSF and NIH, politicization of grants, and suppression of research in fields like climate change—have driven many scholars to initiate protests and resistance actions, and even to seek “scientific asylum” in other places, such as Canada or France. What about Europe? The existing indices and monitors of academic freedom and academic literature suggest that there are legitimate concerns about the state of academic freedom in this region as well, even in established democracies like Germany. Broader preoccupations include the increasing influence of populist politics and societal polarization, which are impacting research-based knowledge and scholarly independence, and potentially compromising institutional autonomy and the scientists’ integrity. Also, increased budgetary pressure and financial cuts seem to be affecting the fair distribution of third-party grants, university autonomy, and increasing job precariousness. There are several projects analysing and collecting data on this problem (see links below). However, this is an incipient field of research on a changing global political scenario. Thus, more information is needed, for example, to catalogue different and emerging forms of scholars’ harassment and intimidation. Better information would allow us to develop better policies to protect the scientific community. In addition, we still lack a common understanding within academia, research and teaching institutions, and society, of what academic freedom is, why it is important, and how we would protect it.

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